12 Simple Homemade Ornament Ideas

Our family is in the heart of Christmas crafts, baking and celebrating as we round the corner to Christmas next week. With that, we have been making some fun ornaments for our tree this year, as well as for gifts.

This year, we made swirled painted ornaments! It was very simple, very inexpensive, fun and unique! I made these with my family when I was a kid. Each year, I try to find a new idea for an ornament for the kids to make. I can attest that any ornament that involves paint, glitter or any combination of is a winner with my kids 🙂

You can make these with any size bulb. You can also make them with glass or even plastic bulbs!

I opted for plastic since I am dealing with 5 little kids and a puppy running around 😉

I found plastic bulbs on sale at Hobby Lobby for .50 each. They are normally around $1 each. Walmart also sells them everyday for .88 each. I bought 2 paint colors – Christmas Red and Christmas Green – for $1 each at Hobby Lobby. Our kids also found sparkly fake snow and had the idea to pour some inside the bulbs after the paint dries! I love their creative ideas too and so we went with that, which was $1 as well at Hobby Lobby!

The painted swirl ornaments are very simple.

Here’s how we made them:

Remove tops and store so that you don’t lose them! We use egg cartons to store and for drying.

Pour the first paint color in.

Start “swirling” to your heart’s desire by rotating the bulb all around

Let the first color dry because the colors will “mix” and you will end up with a brownish color (similar to our crayon Easter eggs ;))

Add the second color and “swirl”

Let them dry again

Then add your “snow” to the bulb and put the top back on! You are ready to hang!

I bought extra bulbs to start a new tradition this year. We will be doing this on Christmas Eve as part of our new traditions to add to our old ones. It is called “Time Capsule Ornaments!” I found this picture online to give you an idea too! This family makes one for each year. I think I will be making one for each family member and each Christmas Eve add another strip of paper in each ornament that reflects a milestone or quote from that family member for that year! I plan to stick a picture of that person on the ornament and enjoy adding to and reading the memories each year.

Finally, for some additional ideas, consider grabbing plastic or glass bulbs and creating any of these ideas too! Honestly, there are probably thousands of ideas with these ornaments. Just be creative 🙂

This ornament was given to us this year by extended family. They did something similar, but used the foam “snowballs” and painted the outside!